A Bed-Stuy shul has been blasting a siren every Friday to signal the beginning of Shabbos, and neighbors say their ears can’t take it anymore, reports Reuven Fenton for the New York Post.
60-year-old Robert Prichard lives about 100 feet from the Congregation Bais Yaakov Nechemia D’Satmar at 144 Spencer Street and told Fenton that he has to wear earmuffs he bought from a gun store at the hour the alarm is sounded.
Prichard said the shul installed the new, blasting alarm this summer after building an additional wing to accommodate more people.
Aaron Graubart, 48, a food photographer said the sound registered 106 – which is close to a chain saw – from his window.
In response, Fenton reports that Rabbi Moshe Dovid Niederman, president of Satmar’s United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn, said the neighbors should calm down.
“The sounds of houses of worship, whether it be a church bell, Islamic call to prayer or Shabbos bell make up the tones that are the anthem of the City of New York,” Niederman said, adding that the city’s noise code gives religious organizations an exemption.
The congregation offered the city – and still look forward – to sit down with the city and the neighbors to deal with this issue, and I hope that this will be resolved amicably.”
